Redis will remain BSD licensed • Hacker News Board

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#81

Post by zimbatm » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

dilap wrote: post #23

antirez wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly my colleagues did a poor job with such an announcement there, and I did not get a chance to read it (which is actually a good thing, it means that the OSS division, I'm part of, is independent and can work to the Github repositories without caring about what the commercial side does). But it was kinda of a manifest to announce that certain things made inside Redis Labs are now Common Clause licensed. In doub…

It was clear to me from a careful reading that the page did not refer to Redis, but it also seemed deliberately designed to suggest that it did. It seemed pretty scummy. And the name itself of "Commons Clause" is practically a tiny version of fake news, since it tries to give an "open source" feeling to what is essentially a proprietary license. As a practical/PR matter, I think Redis Labs have likely shot themselves…

Ironically AWS (and probably Google) is the reason why they had to adopt that kind of license since they are not giving back. Obviously AWS is not tied by the license but it would make sense for them to sponsor the product instead of milking it entirely. Elastic is having similar issues with AWS.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#82

Post by XiZhao » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #76

XiZhao wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Commons Clause clearly acknowledges this in the FAQ: https://commonsclause.com/

From that page: > The Commons Clause is a license condition drafted by Heather Meeker that applies a minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license Making it proprietary and failing the Open Source Definition. You cannot have Commons Clause 'on top' of an existing Open Source license. This is impossible. You can only replace the existing Open Source license with Commons Clause. The page…

Yes, and right below it acknowledges that it is not Open Source and doesn't try to be:

> It this “Open Source”? > No, at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD. Applying the Clause to an open source project will transition the project to “source-available”.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#83

Post by Yiftach » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

zokier wrote: post #70

Yiftach wrote: post #55

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs . We initially released these modules under AGPL li…

First of all, I do appreciate your reply here. > we got requests from developers, working at large enterprises to move from AGPL to a more permissive license, because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy. It's not clear how Commons Clause will help here. I can't imagine many corporations liking Commons Clause if they have decided against AGPL.

Well, we already have positive responses from few large enterprises.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#84

Post by XiZhao » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

dwheeler wrote: post #64

But it does appear to be true that some Redis modules used to be open source software (OSS) and are now proprietary. As I understand it, some modules used to be licensed under the AGPL (an OSS license) and they are now under this new "Commons Clause" (which is a proprietary license). So while the core of Redis is OSS, if my understanding is correct, it's absolutely true that parts of Redis have switched to being prop…

Also: there is no longer a source-disclosure requirement built into the license.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#85

Post by nailer » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

XiZhao wrote: post #82

nailer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From that page: > The Commons Clause is a license condition drafted by Heather Meeker that applies a minimal-form commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license Making it proprietary and failing the Open Source Definition. You cannot have Commons Clause 'on top' of an existing Open Source license. This is impossible. You can only replace the existing Open Source license with Commons Clause. The page…

Yes, and right below it acknowledges that it is not Open Source and doesn't try to be: > It this “Open Source”? > No, at least not by the official definition set forth by the OSD. Applying the Clause to an open source project will transition the project to “source-available”.

Yes. The page is full of tautologies. It shoudn't be.

Here's a pull request: https://github.com/fossas/commons-clause/pull/3

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#86

Post by Cursuviam » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:08 PM UTC

Yiftach wrote: post #55

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs . We initially released these modules under AGPL li…

Hmmm, I wonder if you could use a license even more virulent than the AGPL to approach problem (a) and then dual license to solve (b)

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#87

Post by arminiusreturns » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

BSD: Freedom for the developer

GPL: Freedom for the user

You've made your choice.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#88

Post by zimbatm » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

Even if Redis were to change license, the ones who would be to blame are the big cloud providers that re-package OSS products and rent them without giving anything back. They are milking the work out of these projects, taking only the opportunity to make money out of it.

I remember talking to Elastic and they had a similar issue where AWS would take their product, package it and not give anything back (money or patches).

Obviously it's permitted by the license, it doesn't mean that it's right.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#89

Post by antirez » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

zokier wrote: post #70

Yiftach wrote: post #55

Hi, this is Yiftach, CTO and Co-founder of Redis Labs. First, let me assure you that Redis remains and always will remain, open source, BSD license. For avoiding any doubt - commons clause (as defined in commonsclause.com) is applied only to add-ons (modules), on top of Redis (e.g. RediSearch, Redis Graph, ReJSON, Redis-ML, Rebloom) that were developed by Redis Labs . We initially released these modules under AGPL li…

First of all, I do appreciate your reply here. > we got requests from developers, working at large enterprises to move from AGPL to a more permissive license, because the use of AGPL is against their company’s policy. It's not clear how Commons Clause will help here. I can't imagine many corporations liking Commons Clause if they have decided against AGPL.

I think that what happens here is that enterprises don't like a license where there is this concept of open sourcing internal changes. They are happier with limiting the kind of use you can do with the code instead, like doing SaaS, that most of them don't plan to do at all.

Re: Redis will remain BSD licensed

#90

Post by Piskvorrr » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

artursapek wrote: post #52

antirez wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit that the communication was not great, but the announcement never said Redis would switch. Maybe I'm a bit biased, because before Redis Labs doing this license switch, we internally even agreed about taking the core BSD, so the goals of the company were always clear, regardless of the fact that this page in the company web site was unclear. But "Redis switching license" was factually incorrect since the start…

I understand what you mean. I think you called it "fake news" because you were frustrated about reporters/bloggers/twitter personalities spreading a story without bothering to do any research to see if it's true (because the story is dramatic and easy to spread). The reason people are having issues with you using that term is it has developed a strong association with state-sponsored propaganda campaigns (see: Russia…

"Redis’ permissive BSD open source license allows them to do so legally, but this must be changed" (extensions are AGPL, so this can only refer to Redis core)

But yeah, blame lazy journalists.